Lost baggage - how to solve
 

In the past 24 hours we flew HKG - AMS (Cathay J booking) and then AMS - LIS (KLM Y booking). In HKG Cathay checked our bag through to LIS.

I checked in the lounge in AMS and also at the gate in AMS and was told the bag was in AMS and would be loaded onto the flight to LIS. Well, we arrived in LIS just now and the bag didn't arrive. Spoke to the third party ground handlers who said they have "no clue" about it and logged a missing bag request.

I understand how these systems work and the missing bag request is quite passive, ie, needs someone to manually associate the bag with the missing reference. I tried calling Cathay and KLM to ask if someone was able to track the last known location of the bag and was told we just had to wait for the online system to update (surely in their systems they can see where it was last scanned).

My friend is deeply upset about the experience and I guess am looking for advice on how to chase this up most effectively. Do not fly KLM often but have SkyTeam Elite Plus status.

It is true that once you enter a Property Irregularity Report (PIR) after your luggage is missing, nobody goes to look for your luggage. Your luggage is merely flagged in the system, so that once it gets scanned somewhere on this planet, it will be manually re-labeled to the correct destination. Besides, how would it help to know where the bag was last seen? What would you do if you knew it was last seen in AMS? There is no-one to call to do something, your bag will most likely eventually be scanned and then re-routed as required.

It's pointless to ask in the lounge; the place to do so - as it appears you did - is at the gate.

Did you show the baggage receipt and have it scanned, or have the gate agent type in the locator? And did you explain that this was a bag that KLM should not be "expecting"?

If just asked in a casual manner - without explaining that this is a bag that is not interlined in the "normal" manner, and therefore without KLM actively "seeking" the bag - the agent may merely have thought that you were being over-cautious about a "normal" interlined bag.

In cases like this it's best to roll with the punches and be patient. There is very little you can do proactively. Most bags turn up. If LIS is not your home, you can buy essentials and send the receipts to KLM.

Having had this happen many times before with BA, I completely understand this, but my friend was quite stressed and upset about the experience. Guess my advice of let the system do it's thing is correct

I explained it was interlined from CX and also explained I had previous experiences whereby the interline failed because the baggage receipt was not scanned properly or logged correctly (I had specially been told based on past experiences to check at the gate, so this is exactly what I did). They scanned the baggage receipt and told me it all looked good. Of course they could have just said that to keep me happy, since I guess their goal is on-time departure.

I don't mean to sound facetious, but it's probably best to book travel all on one ticket, according to your actual intended final destination, rather than making a habit of booking separate tickets. You're lucky that you seem to so frequently have the first airline acquiesce to your request to check bags through, but as you can see, bags can and do go missing when on travelling on separate tickets; the second airline has no notification that a bag is in transit to them, because as far as they can tell you are originating in Amsterdam - the only ticket they know of has you simply flying AMS-LIS - and KLM is certainly not in the frequent position of seeing bags being transferred from CX services arriving in AMS, so it's not that there's a guaranteed, well-established daily flow of bags arriving at AMS on CX from HKG that get handed over with regularity to KLM.

Alternatively, do as I do when travelling on separate tickets; plan enough time between tickets so that I can retrieve the luggage myself and check it in for the next trip...while calculating whether the extra time wasted is worth whatever "savings" and "convenience" booking travel in this way may save you.

The party to blame here imho is Swissport in Amsterdam, the ground agent who is handling the luggage of CX at AMS. Normally, at the departure airport they refuse to check your bag through on a connection HKG CX AMS KL LIS if on separate tickets but CX at HKG apparently did (most probably on request of the traveler? Or did they spontaneously do this?)
As soon as the CX flight is in the air, Swissport in AMS would have received a 'LDM' , a loadmessage including information on where the transfers bags are loaded. It is their job to handle those bags in time, so they make it to the connecting flight. In this case, they apparently failed to deliver the bag (s) in time to the KLM flight to LIS. OP mentions that the bagtag was scanned in AMS and staff said it looked good? Well yes, surely the bag arrived on the CX flight in Amsterdam. But if Swissport fails to deliver it in time at the KL flight to Lisbon, it will stay in Amsterdam. PIR report made in LIS: beautiful. Nothing you can do but wait until it is picked up in Amsterdam and sent on hopefully the first available flight to Lisbon (KL, TP or HV, doesn't mather which airline). It makes no sense to call anywhere, keep checking the PIR reference online and make sure the delivery address is correct.
I hope the bag will soon be reunited with its owner.....

CX have a published policy about this https://www.cathaypacific.com/cx/en_...in-policy.html and KLM is a partner airline. So I asked at HKG and they looked up the KLM booking. They even issued the KLM boarding passes to us. It seemed like something that they did often and seemed well integrated. In my experience QR also do the same.

The CX flight is one of the first to land in AMS and we even had a ground delay in HKG because the captain explained to us they have no AMS ground staff available before 6am. So maybe it could be all the staff were not around when the message was received overnight.

Thank you for the information on how it works. It is a fascinating process.

As much as I would have preferred one ticket with all flights, the HKG-AMS was a point redemption and afaik it is not possible to use Avios points to book KLM flight connections with CX.

Correct, but there is no need to travel via AMS, or to include KLM in your itinerary, or to travel on separate tickets, when booking a trip from HKG to LIS using Avios

In any event, you would probably be advised to stick to in-alliance partners - or at a push, airlines that may use the same ground handler at your self-connection point - when selecting an airline for the separate ticket for which you are relying on CX's published check-through policy.


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The baggage tracking information KLM puts on its app and makes available to the lounge agents is rudimentary at best. I recently traveled through AMS from North America. On Delta's app, I could see that my luggage never left Atlanta. On the AFKL app, it said it was in AMS. I asked an agent, who looked it up, and swore it was in AMS, being loaded on my final flight.

​​​​​​Needless to say, the bag left Atlanta the next day.

​​​​​​There's not much you can do, and, while my bags have missed their connection many times, they almost always arrive by the next day.

The bag turned up, and my friend is now very happy. thanks for all your support :)

Hijacking this threat to not start a similar one.

Today I got what initially seemed to be a delayed baggage at AMS. Nothing new, happens literally everytime I have a short connection there, but usually not a problem as they just send it on the next flight. That was also the advice I got today from the baggage office upon arrival at ZRH, and an hour later I also got an email from KLM that my bag has been loaded on KL1921. Usual stuff.

Except that ZRH office now claims that the bag hasn't arrived on that flight. I contacted KLM too, according to them the bag is "expected to be forwarded on KL1921 on June 6" (which is in the past) but the Zurich office claims it wasn't on that flight. They also claim they asked both stations to look for my bag (BS of course).

After hundreds of flights this is the first time my bag is lost, not delayed, as in the airline clearly doesn't know where it is. I suppose there's not much I can do, but I'm wondering how likely it is that the bag would be lost completely in this scenario, or that it will take substantial time to deliver to Zurich (say later than tomorrow or day after)? What bothers me is that KLM thinks the bag has left Amsterdam, and dnata thinks the bag hasn't arrived in Zürich. If they merely forgot to load the bag, it would already be rerouted again?

Also, any advice on reasonable expenses KLM will pay for? So far I needed to buy a new pyjama (2 pieces per 25 CHF), toothbrush and toothpaste. If the bag won't arrive to Zürich by noon tomorrow, I will need to buy four t-shirts and sets of underwear + a jacket (I'm thinking some cheap crap from H&M). We're going to a remote area next where shopping options may be limited so I need to cover myself for the entire stay even if the bag may end up arriving earlier. Beyond those 4 days I'm thinking about using laundry service instead of buying clothes - would KLM cover that, as it seems more reasonable?

AF and KLM are not too stingy with reasonable expenses incurred as a result of delayed or lost luggage, as long as it's not arriving at home (which is not your case).

Buy what you need, keep your tickets from the cash desk, and don't worry about it. Submit the expenses when the bag arrives, but remember to update your delivery address if you plan to move between places in the meantime.

Even back at home they are not stingy at all, if I travel for over a week there are not that many clothes left at home, I already found myself back at home with a lengthy delay of luggage having to buy clothes and toiletries, no issues whatsoever getting reimbursed by KLM.